NOW I AM ABLE TO DO WHAT IT IS I WANT TO DO

(a greek chorus of ragamuffins in confessionals)

by Adam Setton

Set Description:

It is winter. It is cold. It is a courtyard, or park, with several benches and a holly bush. Snow

blows in periodically. Snow drifts onto the stage, off the stage, onto the audience, into the air.

Sounds of wind permeating for the duration of the performance.

SCENE ONE.

A Cold, Cold Winter

Lights up on a bearded man with glasses, a red sweatshirt evidently bought in a

Washington D.C. gift shop, a guitar and a sign that reads : ANYONE GOT ANYTHING

NEGATIVE TO SAY, SAVE IT FOR ANOTHER DAY. He sits on a crate and strums and hums in

the courtyard. The Chorus enters, grouping together as friends.

A

I’m on the subway platform and on this caffeine rush, I milk my way through the oceans.

I gyrate, I fizzle, I shake my nose drizzle. My eyes flicker like the subway car’s signal. I enter the

last car, where skeptics stray from. This man, he was lurking and watching my every step. Each

step chipping away paint, paint chips falling on the tracks. Body falling on the tracks. Now he

follows me into the next car and I’m thinking: (this guy better fuck off. does he not see me

glaring?). The operator takes us for a spin, jolting around a bend, so HOLD ON FOLKS! He falls

on my chest like a toddler unaware of the joints attaching bones attached to a brain signaling

them to stand without locking their knees. A baby horse only needs a few hours to get up and

start walking after birth. I can’t shake the fact it was all preconceived. That this was a motivated

offense. It all seemed choreographed. He saw everyone else grab onto the handle, looked me in

the eye, then fell on me. It was uncomfortable enough to watch, let alone the feeling of having to

catch someone falling. And furthermore! Someone I believed was following me! This made me

paranoid. He made me paranoid. He put on no mask, hid no shame in attempting to talk to me,

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no shame in touching his palm to my shoulder. And then I saw the blind woman walking next to

the track’s edge.

B

This woman got on the express. This man curses her out after being asked to move so she

can get comfortable. He yells: “Bitch, whore, suck my dick…” (i ask myself “WHY?”). I despise

wretched vulgarity on the basis of insecurity. She wore glasses, he wore a hard hat. I hunched

over my knees, feeling violated for her, with her. Familiar faces that bring a radiant light are

difficult to find here. It’s been two days in a row now that I find Jim Morrison’s face plastered on

someone’s shirt. And now, in the faux granite that is the subway car floor, I find his face again.

The sounds of sirens feels more jarring than ever before.

C

It’s too late now, it’s too late now, it’s too late now. Never coming back, never coming

back. Never coming back. Please. Don’t don’t don’t don’t. Don’t forgive. Give. Give me give me

give me give me give me give me. I I I I am selfish. I I I I I I I I I I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t I

don’t I don’t want it I don’t want your love, I I I don’t deserve your love. I I I I am human. You

are Earth. I am lost. You are found. I am here. You are there. I am winding down down down

down. I am going to keep quiet now.

D

Mother told me not to do it. She told me not to take the medicine. She she she she told me

not to. She she she yelled at me. She she she took me by the shoulders. She she she threw her

words at my face. She slapped me with them. She has a mouth on her and so do I and so do I.

She threatens to go back to Pakistan. She she she threatens to go back home. I tell her this is my

choice. I tell her this is my body. I tell her to support this. I tell her “I support you.” “Teach me to

be right.” - Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Character D sits down next to THE CAT. They pet THE CAT. They sing to THE CAT.

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E

What do I do? Do I do laundry? Do I cook? Can I cook? What to eat what to eat what to

eat? What on Earth should I eat? Give me a can of beans, corned beef, broccoli, sweet potatoes

cut into cubes so they’re easy to eat, two sticks of butter, one for the each of us and a handful of

spinach. “Baby, it’s already triple washed.” I heard her say this. I head her say this in my ear. I

heard her words and they kissed me on the cheek as gentle as the rain did in March. It is over. It

is over. This is over and we are through. We are through. You are there and here I am and here I

am.

F

As seedlings we didn’t know what to do, so we passively fought and now we’re apart.

And like a holly bush, you plucked my red orbs of inspiration like candy. And like holly, I will

glisten in the sun unlike other matte leaves. And like holly, I will excrete red orbs of endearment

and curiosity, as red as fire as red as candlelight. 200 lumens and 200 words to describe the way I

feel about you. The distance between you and I is ineffable. The distance between me and my red

orbs of inspiration unmeasurable. And like holly, I will embrace my thorn edges. Like holly, my

thorns will also shine in the sun. Do not clip my edge’s thorn, do not chip my red bulbs of light.

Stop pretending I’m big, soft and translucent like the leaf of an oak. Light bounces off of me as

light does on a bush of holly. It does not reveal my insides or veins. It does not invade. It lets me

hide because we grew this way. Holly and I. We share the love of protection. We protect

ourselves. The sun knows it when we reflect its light. Your hands know it when you glaze over

our epidermis, our skin. We cannot easily tear apart like the leak of an oak. Holly and I, our

leaves are as strong as our branches are as strong as our roots. So if you want someone big, soft

and easily breakable, go sit under an oak. Holly and I weren’t made to provide shade, we grew

and evolved into something else. This doesn’t make one another better or worse, it just makes us

different. And that’s okay.

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SCENE TWO. The Libretto of Longing

In the beginning there was no discourse, only possibility, only expression.

A softening of glass over time. A liquidity became you when I was yours and you were mine.

In the cathedral there was a pure form of love.

Your body a holy structure, my body a field of grass overgrown. We began at the beginning, we began at a possibility. We began and then we ended over the discourse of liquidity.

A look into a shard of time after we shattered like glass.

Your body a cathedral, stoic and hard as metal. You, in shiny armor architecture, you, a gesture of softening metal, you, a flower in my field of unknowing.

A look into a shard of time after we shattered like glass.

You softened your petal, unsheathed your metal in my field of unknowing you wither and whittle into lavender dust.

A look into a shard of time after we shattered like glass.

In the end there was little expression, only discourse of liquidity, only me.

A softening of glass over time, a liquidity became you when I was yours and you were mine.

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SCENE THREE. She Came At Me With A Kitchen Knife

One actor. One mic. A desk, a chair, a cigarette, a cup of coffee, a glass of water. An empty chair at the other side of the room. Both sides of the stage are lit with spotlights.

Sea ward, seagulls, seaweed, find the shells, the crest, the trough, the wave, the salt, the sand, the sewer, the kids

ACTOR: She came at me with a kitchen knife.

And how do you do? Do you do how and how Do you do? And how do you do taxes And faxes and taxes. And do you do taxes? Paying relaxes do you And painful taxes. And How do you pay painful Taxes and relaxes while Paying your taxes? And how do you scrub Floors and clean doors? And you clean your pores and floors And mop doors and scrub. And You do pores and how do you floors And scrub pores and clean the Rug and wipe and weep and puff pipe? And how can you stare at television And envision you doing a television? And you do have a vision of The world doing how you do television. Do you envision the commission from Television? How do you vision you doing Your commission? How is it tradition To commission from television? And how you do And do you commission from Taxing people into prison? How Do you tax into prison and how Is it tradition to commission from Tax payers in prison on television?

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Do you do how And how do you do? And when I wash my body, With bar soap black from day’s end, I can still smell you. And when I ride buses and Trains wet with mud from day’s rain, I laugh and whimper at how Your smell lingers. And when I cry with This woman staring at me, I turn. My face Far away from her, And towards the coughing man. I ride in the streets in the rain Today. And I question The validity of friendships, (Past Present Future) The corruption. The time never to be returned. I wish you knew how hard it was. To strip your scent from my hairs. And I thought on the time When the fog of my room Seeped through my window Pain.

I’m no teacher but My hair sweats semen tonight, And I reek from what came After the baby’s bathwater. The salt, melted and charred, Crispy on my thigh. My professor told me foie gras is A delicacy, he said. A diseased organ, he said. A damned fool, I am. It wasn’t my fault I was skipping feasts. Maybe our insides are diseased, he thinks, As the baby sits in his bathwater. Are there pockets of mold in folds of fat, Like the packaged bread I had to Throw away. Like the

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Overly matured milk, like the Chunks gliding down the throat of a sink. I hope you’re glad to know, I mowed my lawn yesterday. But you neither noticed Nor commented. Didn’t stroke A blade of grass. At least you played fingernail piano Across my shoulder blade. Carving moments of time in turkey breast. Forking me, opening me up to later Stuff me with sweet potato, And more raw honey. Their miles are our inches, And angry they may be. That will not bring us fresh milk, Bread or butter. It’s the bathwater I bathe in, Soaking my split turkey breast, That will continually control my hunger.

The echoes of the thunderous

clapping and roaring of the waves crashing into each other. Diving over and under. Rapidly

rushing towards me, until they retreat at my toe nail’s fork.

Back into their home, The hissing of the foam And the waves fade into the shimmery glitter of sand. The foam echoes also, Pulling back, ebbing into Colosal, concrete support beams. The pier stands with me on hind-legs watching The ocean rushing through shoreline. Never in a single spot. Never ending. Never ceasing to exist. Eternal seas of thought bile.

Care of him: I asked if the late hour,

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In spite of my heartaches, Absorbed the thoughts of one another. “I would say you fed me when I was hungry.” She busied himself making me Sweetly mourn over lost hopes, Dwelling o’er her face. Beauty, like the night, left our Private world. And then, I knew how to take Forlorn souls sacrificed for alcohol and drugs. He never had seen so much collective misery amassing from musicians, But you, Cloudless climbs; all over the world, Dancing through the hall, in Circle and play and play. And a drowsy numbness pain. The slight pang of possessiveness sharing it With others. It was Always wanted, but waves in every curly tress Would keep on playing through their gritty innocence. It had a purity. A common language. Nothing was spoken. It was just Comfortable. It didn’t matter What discordance they found stored In a back room. The stories of his neighbors, What they had, what melody Key or tempo mellowed to that Tender light was consciously Or unconsciously, For himself. Wordlessly we mutually understood We dwelled in a fresh state of searching, children Who were escaping the purgatory of their existence. They would sit in a field. Our little room as inmates in a hospitable prison; The sick know the heart of youth itself, They dreamed of transformation.

!10

SCENE FOUR. The Cathedral

archways, cathedral glass, stained glass, gargoyles, corinthian columns, a tolling bell, benches, a red rug, an altar, incense, a prophet on a pedestal.

SOOTHSAYER: Not far from here, in our western wood, we have murders all year long. (Sounds of quacking.)

JOANNE: James! Come inside, you have to get dressed.

Slowly performers dressed in black enter the scene from offstage. They enter the home. They crowd around the dinner table, a table cloaked in white linen. James enters, dressed in a three-piece suit, a red handkerchief in his jacket pocket. He sits at the table. Joanne sets a plate of roast chicken, peas and sweet potatoes in front of her son. He begins to eat his supper. Sounds of the first libretto’s refrain echo as though to imitate the ways in which James cuts his food.

SOOTHSAYER: Are you so certain of everything?

JOANNE: Why yes, yes I am and I find nothing the matter with that.

SOOTHSAYER: So how could you be certain of this dream?

JOANNE: (In song.)

This dream. This dream, like the memory of you, an ebbing and flowing.

This dream. This dream, like the song of you, the song of you to sing no more. (End of song.)

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SCENE FIVE. The Cathedral …

CHORUS: A photograph with a glass frame. Two pennies. Copper and Petina. A glass of milk. A bowl of boiled sweet potatoes. A pitcher of water. Some red apples. Peanut butter in a jar.

SOOTHSAYER: (In song.)

Clasp the knife in your palm. Gently scrape the edge of your chin. Softly sigh your breath on my skin. Dip the knife in the jar. Calmly spread the peanut butter. Glory to the mouth that stutters. (End of song.)

JOANNE: Go into your bedroom. Turn out the lights. Close the shades or the curtains. Reach for a hand. Grab that hand. Feel the skin the lines like terrain on this hand. Crows feet like mountains, a valley forks your eyelid and through it we can see the forest. Through your eyes we saw the future. Through your eyes your soul your spirit we gained a new strength. Something of fire and light. Something of breath and wind and air. Something of hope and solace and content. Something of ravishing abundance. Something of intellectual stimulus. Something of fodder for your love. Something of heartache. Something of fear. Something of guilt. Something of sacrifice. Something of martyrdom. Something of purity and danger.

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SCENE SIX. The Porcelain Throne

JAMES: (In song.)

Clean the toilet, clean the toilet. Clean the toilet, clean the tub. Clean, clean, clean, clean. Wipe, wipe, wipe, wipe. Wipe it down, wipe it down.

SOOTHSAYER: Get it wet.

JAMES: Clean it now.

CHORUS: Piss stains building up. Shit stains building up. Wine stains building up. Chocolate stains building up. Ashes building up. Wood piling up.

SOOTHSAYER: Yourself, building up.

JOANNE: Myself, building up.

CHORUS: A house is building up. Your heart building up. This city building up. New love building up. New dreams building up.

JAMES: Old dreams at bay.

JOANNE: Old toys and empty glasses on the rug of this new house. A ball stuck under the couch. The furniture is nailed to the floor. (Sounds of hammering. Sounds of footsteps. It’s the general. He’s entered the house. End of song.)

THE GENERAL: It’s quite alright to hate me now, but we both know that deep down the feelings still deep down is good.

JOANNE: I thought that I was dreaming when you said you loved me. I could hate you now.

THE GENERAL: But the feelings still deep down IS GOOD!

JOANNE: I WANT TO GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW SO I CAN DREAM RIGHT NOW!

THE GENERAL: Snap snap snap snap snap snap snap snap snap out of it.

JOANNE: I hate the way I always lose my cool.

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THE GENERAL: Something cruel I kept inside my pocket. You turn to me and tell me that we’re through. Becoming what I never wanted to. I’m having trouble breathing.

JOANNE: I got lost in wedding bells, in a sunny day, in a framed picture of you and I. I got lost in sleep. I will never rise again, the same way I once did. I am laying on the ground. Please turn this way again. Please? Can you hear me?

THE GENERAL: I can hear it when I’m talking to you. Your words they float like my fingers did up your cheek.

JOANNE: In that poem I wrote, I felt so close to you. Now I write poems for you and I’m further from you than I have ever been before.

THE GENERAL: I am lost between you and me.

JOANNE: I am lost with us and somehow I am not me anymore. I am not me and I am not us and if I really was so awful, then let me go crashing through the window.

THE GENERAL: The wrinkles in my hands are cold without you.

JOANNE: I almost lost hope. You couldn’t be my friend and I couldn’t be there for you either. We couldn’t confront the basic idea of us. We will do the same thing over again in August. I was nothing more than lonely, and I feel most alone now. Everything I thought was beautiful is spoiled, everything I loved I’ve lost. I was also overwhelmed with the feeling of just to leave. I stuck through us.

THE GENERAL: There is a fortress between us when we’re together.

JOANNE: There is no peace in the things that I love, and the friendship that years ago felt right. Ashamed to put you through this fight, and I rage through everything in my past and I’m sorry to put you through this again but please come back.

JOANNE: (In song.)

Plea. Plea. I plea I plea for you to please come back to me.

I plea I plea for you to come back to me.

In the heartbeats of mine, you’re still smiling. (End of song.)

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SCENE SEVEN. A Couple At Wits End

In the middle of a park on a sunny afternoon. Set on a mountain. The audience has a choice, they have objects before them. The actors will perform with

interference from the audience. They must find the momentum in one another to keep up the energy.

Lily: Take a bottle of wine.

Alex: Open it up.

Lily: Let it breathe.

Alex: Pour a cup.

Lily. When

Alex: will

Lily: you

Alex: get it through your thick skull?

Lily: When

Alex: will

Lily: you

Alex: gain some more confidence?

Lily: How

Alex: will

Lily: you

Alex: burn the house down?

Lily: Will it be with

Alex: a lit candle in your bed?

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Lily: Will it be with

Alex: the gas stove?

Lily: Will it be with

Alex: a lit cigarette?

Lily: What will it be that causes the house to burn down?

Alex: What will the ramifications be?

Lily: What will the next house be?

Alex: Will you end up burning down that one too?

Lily: Will you end up moving into something

Alex: bigger, better

Lily: safer?

Alex: What do you want to do to me?

Lily: I want to rub you down, smooth your back with my hands.

Alex: You want to—

Lily: I want to pull back your hair, tuck it behind your ears.

Alex: You want to—

Lily: I want to get behind your body and hug you.

Alex: You want to—

Lily: I want to get close to your ear and whisper,

Alex: “Are you ready?”

Lily: What do you want to do to me?

Alex: I want to get to know you more.

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Lily: You want to—

Alex: I want to take you to dinner then the movies.

Lily. You want to—

Alex: I want to give you flowers to remember me by when I’m not there.

Lily: Where you’re not here.

Alex: When I’m not there.

Lily: When I’m not there.

Alex: When you’re not here

Lily: it’s like a dam broke and

Alex: blood rushes

Lily: pulsating through the canyons

Alex: of my body

Lily: of my mind.

Alex: Riddled with anxiety.

Lily: Overcome with waves of emotion.

Alex: This was what it was like to burn down your house.

Lily: This was what it was like to burn your bed.

Alex: Your necklace.

Lily: Your clothes.

Alex: Your poems.

Lily: Your stories. Alex: The memory of you.

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Lily: The sweetness like honey—

Alex: and the bitterness like orange peel.

Lily: I saw honey drip from your lip.

Alex: Down your frothy, cream, cupcake belly.

Lily: I saw vegetables grow.

Alex: I saw soil so fertile and fresh.

Lily: We’re still awaiting to awake.

Alex: We’re still asleep.

Lily: We want to be awake.

Alex: Like a sleeve of ash hanging off a cigarette.

Lily: We take off our clothes.

Alex: I want to thank you for having me over.

Lily: I want to thank you for having me at your table, even when I—

Alex: nibbled at your basil plant, even when I—

Lily: walked through your door with a gust of wind—

Alex: sweeping smokey stench, stifling your parents. Lily: Stumble home from

Alex: nights of wine stained teeth,

Lily: Italian arias.

Alex: Photographs lay still,

Lily: on my window sill.

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Alex: Pensive flames stuck in Lily: salty candles.

Alex: Without you,

Lily: the steamboats run on railways,

Alex: and the trains drown in the river.

Lily: The leaves never fall, they just keep

Alex: Turning, turning in the wind. With no spot to land.

Lily: Your body, my backpack.

Alex: Your legs, the juiciest of peaches.

Lily: Give me something to

Alex: sink into.

Lily: You wise woman,

Alex: you once said, “That’s what it’s all about,

Lily: man, dry mouth.”

Alex: I can hear the panic in your voice

Lily: when you seal your lips from thought drool.

Alex: And that is something I empathize with,

Lily: and I couldn’t love you without.

Alex: I drool sometimes too.

Lily: Late nights, building Aristotle’s

Alex: vomiting crane out of paper maché.

Lily: Aristotle said that when a crane

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Alex: vomits, a gold stone comes out Lily: of it’s belly.

Alex: And I smother and batter and

Lily: butter and glaze and coat

Alex: and cover the daily news with glue.

Lily: Sealing in that gold stone.

Alex: My jaw hangs open dripping

Lily: and leaking, likes the pipes above your head.

Alex: Give us something to extinguish the fire.

Lily: Give us something to forget.

Alex: Give us something to vomit.

Lily: Give us something to fill our stomach.

Alex: Give us something to remind us of yesterday.

Lily: Give us something to get us out of bed tomorrow.

Alex: Give us something to quiet us.

Lily: Give us something to raise our voices.

Alex: Give us something to be calm.

Lily: Give us something to keep this going.

Alex: Give us something to make this stop.

Lily: Give us something to go to sleep.

Alex: Please, please give us something to give us rest.

!20

SCENE EIGHT. tba

THE MUSICIAN: These are the things that haul other things away. A subway train car, your hand, your memory, the bullet from a gun. It’s early October, the year 2016, and so far there have been 706 documented deaths caused by police shootings. Time is ticking and the body count just keeps going up. Hands on a clock must feel so trapped, only one way to go, only forward in time, only in this circular motion, the recursiveness of the clock’s hands has no mercy. It will not does not can not stop in time. It cannot go back. It cannot change itself, what’s done is done and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. There ain’t nothing wrong with that. We cannot go back but we can go forward. We can stop this brutality. We can stop this murder. We can stop this hatred. We can stop this aggression.

THE FRIEND: Is there something that you’re working on that I can see?

THE MUSICIAN: Some samplings of music I edited into a song. A remix. A remixed song.

THE FRIEND: When someone does not hear you…

THE MUSICIAN: Joan Didion

THE FRIEND: playing on repeat like slicing a chile pepper

showering and lathering and cleaning

My medicine is lavender. My medicine is tobacco. My medicine is laughter and sugar and beans. My medicine is yellow. My medicine is water. My medicine is grass. My medicine is water on grass. My medicine is wet grass. My medicine is fire. My medicine is propanol.

and what was here five years ago? and what was here five hundred years ago?

triangular cognition, gears, engines, thrusting, horse power, pedals, gasoline, steering wheels, fuel, trepidation, anticipation, car crash, car accident, smashed glass, a protractor.

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writing… ( refer to writing a play ) SCENE NINE.

tba

WITCH 1: Like cooking or stirring, we circumvent our problems with more problems, a recipe for disaster. And this is the recipe for disaster: a beginning, a time, a glass, a depth, sincerity, liquidity, science, discourse, possibilities, distinction, structures, architecture, tradition, criticism, intersections, landscapes, softening, fields, everything or the idea of everything, a cathedral, the purest thing, an expression, gravity, weight, heels clicking as they glide on a sidewalk, helping a friend, meeting a homeless person, sleeping sprawled across the bed, walking to school, noticing an old classmate, hugging a stranger, writing a play, the shattering of a candle on white tile, anger in her eyes, fury in those eyes, no one and everyone, a homeless person with five suitcases, my future with a lost love, a stranger I actually know.

WITCH 2: A superpower is the ability to fly over cities and towns.

WITCH 3: A superpower is the ability to love without feeling loved.

WITCH 1: A superpower could be invisibility or strength. It could be telepathy.

WITCH 3: A superpower is the power of knowledge, the power of the brain.

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SCENE TEN. tba

Find a paper clip on the floor. Pick it up, put it in your pocket. If you don’t have a pocket, clasp it in your hand gently. Don’t bend it, don’t drop it and if you drop it, pick it up again. You will need this paper clip for a multitude of reasons. You will need this paper clip to hold your words together. You will need it forever.

Let the paper clip hold your thoughts together as your lover holds your words in their heart. What is a lover to you? It could be him or her or them. It could be the person sitting next to you or the person you left at home to come here. It could be your mother, your sister, your aunt or your niece. It could be your cat or your cousin. It could be your dog or your pet tarantula. It could be the leaf you picked up and admired today. It could be the plate of food you’re going to eat when you leave this room. A bowl of cannelini bean soup with wilted greens. Onions and garlic, salt and pepper, all of these for the flavor. It could be the bread roll to spread your butter on. It could be the bread roll to dip in your soup. Your lover could be the fork you use to pick at the greens stuck at the bottom of your soup bowl. It could be anything. So choose your words carefully, because your lover, your cat, your mother, your bowl of bean soup understands the sentiments you speak. They hold your words to their heart. The ways in which you describe your lover is more important to them than you will ever know.

How difficult is this to accept?

Allow yourself to become vulnerable to your lover. Let them in. Let them touch your glass frame, let them clean it. Let them shatter it. Let them pick up the shards. Let your shards cut them. Let their blood make your glass frame dirty again. Let them glue you back together. Let them clean you once more. Let them do this as a ritual every morning, noon and night. Don’t let them out of your sight. For your glass frame is their reflection. And they can’t help but to look and stare at themselves in you, through you. Light bouncing off of them onto you back onto them. Light as liquid as water. Light as the water that washes you both clean. Light as innocence to make time move slower. Light as bright and blue like day breaking through the clouds. You know that blue? That blue you can only see during the early hours of the morning when the sun rises and strikes our Earth’s atmosphere, cloaking it in soft blue? Let that blue be as blue as the water and as blue as the light as blue as the innocence as blue as you as you are too. You are blue and so am I and so am I and so am I. And we would not prefer it any other way. We like us as we are. We are not savages. We are not evil. We are not crazy. We are not addicts. We are not insane. We are insane. We are not harmful. We are not innocent but we want to be. We want to be nice. We want to be open. We want to be present. We want to be careful. We want to be smart. We want to be serious. We want to be funny. We want to be loving. We want to be loved.

Get an envelope. Mail it to a friend. Now go out and love.

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SCENE ELEVEN. tba

Tell me what it takes to make a canary sing. What does it take to make a canary sing? Tell me what it takes to— I say TELL ME WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A CANARY SING.

He only knows destruction. He only knows how to end whatever is made of love. The fire breath he exhales burns everything in his path. He the dragon of tainted tongue and me the one that drowned in the river. I sleep in a pool of blood and mud from a winter’s rain, snow that has melted.

OPHELIA COME HOME OPHELIA COME HOME OPHELIA COME HOME

His fire breath that boils the tiniest puddles of water in these streets. Today is the day I thank the most merciful for banishing me to this hellish place. Everything will be better now. Now that he’s gone everything will be better, yes. I close my eyes and pray to God that I live forever.

Rock me to sleep, tell me a bedtime story.